Attendees

These changes are also part of the NextGen UI experience.

Users searching for employees to add as attendees to an expense now have additional filter options that can be used to narrow search results, helping make the identification of employees accurate and efficient.

Searching for employee attendees has proven difficult as there may have been no fields available to search by other than first name and last name.

With this update, the default advanced search view for employee attendees automatically includes the addition of email addresses and country filters.

This feature update includes the following benefits:

• Accurate identification of employees, particularly for those with the same first and last name

• Improved efficiency for employee searches by providing filters that help narrow relevant search results

• Simplified employee attendee management, eliminating the need to use an attendee import to update attendee data for the SYSEMP attendee type

• Optional inclusion of inactive employees in attendee searches

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This update helps make searching for employee attendees more efficient and also simplifies the management of employee attendees by removing the need to use an attendee import to update the attendee data of the SYSEMP attendee type.

Authentication

These changes are part of the SAP Concur continued commitment to maintaining secure authentication.

Support for the Director SAML service is being deprecated. Travel Management Companies (TMCs) and SAP Concur personnel will soon begin assisting customers who currently use Director SAML to migrate to SAP Concur SAML v2 SSO (SAML v2).

Clients currently using Director SAML are encouraged to migrate to SAML V2 as soon as possible.

Deprecation of support for the Director SAML service is dependent on the following requirements:

• SAP Concur technicians and TMCs assist existing SAP Concur clients to migrate from the Director SAML service to SAML V2.

• All clients that currently rely on the Director SAML service have migrated from Director SAML to SAML V2.

Migration from Director SAML to SAML V2 requires the following general steps:

• The client identifies an admin to act as the SSO admin and assigns the proper permission/role.

• The SSO admin coordinates with their SAP Concur technician to obtain the SAP Concur SP metadata.

• The SSO admin configures the SSO settings at the IdP based on information from SP metadata.

• The SSO admin retrieves IdP metadata from the IdP and delivers the metadata to the SAP Concur technician.

• The SSO admin adds a few testing users and tests the new SSO connection.

• The SSO admin adds a few testing users and tests the new SSO connection.

For more information about the Single Sign-On self-service option, refer to the Shared: Single Sign-On Overview (English Only) and the Shared: Single Sign-On Setup Guide (English Only).

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change provides better security and improved support for users logging in to SAP Concur products and services.

These changes are part of the SAP Concur continued commitment to maintaining secure authentication.

SAP Concur support for Hash-Based Message Authentication Code (HMAC) is being deprecated. Travel Management Companies (TMCs) and SAP Concur personnel are currently assisting customers who use HMAC to migrate to SAP Concur SAML v2 SSO (SAML v2).

SAP Concur provides a Single Sign-On self-service option that enables client admins to setup their SAML v2 connections without involving an SAP Concur support representative.

For more information about the Single Sign-On self-service option, refer to the Shared: Single Sign-On Overview (English Only) and the Shared: Single Sign-On Setup Guide (English Only).

The HMAC deprecation includes two phases:

PHASE I:

• Clients must have an identity provider (IdP) or a custom SAML 2.0 compliant solution.

• Clients begin testing authentication using SAML v2.

• TMCs prepare to onboard new SAP Concur clients to SAML v2.

• Customers will be notified via release notes about the official deprecation date of HMAC. As of the official deprecation date, no new clients can be onboarded using HMAC; new clients must be onboarded to SAML v2.

• Existing clients using HMAC must migrate to SAML v2.

PHASE II:

• TMCs have migrated all existing SAP Concur clients from the HMAC service to SAML v2.

• The HMAC service is deprecated. Phase II is targeted to end mid-year in 2021.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change provides better security and improved support for users logging in to SAP Concur products and services.

Authentication Administration

On 8 December 2020, SAP Concur released a new Company Request Token self-service tool that enables clients to generate the Company Request Token that is required to request a JSON Web Token (JWT) when connecting to APIs in the SAP Concur platform.

Requirements for generating a Company Request Token:

• The client must obtain a link to the new tool from SAP Concur Client Web Services (CWS).

• The client must obtain a Client ID from CWS.

• A company admin must have the Web Services Administrator permission to access the Company Request Token self-service tool through the provided link.

• For a request token to be issued, the Client ID (App ID) must be allowed to connect to the company.

Requirements for obtaining a JWT:

• The Client ID provided by SAP Concur CWS

• The client secret provided by SAP Concur CWS

• The Company UUID generated by the Company Request Token tool

• The Company Request Token generated by the Company Request Token tool

An admin with the Web Services Administrator permission can navigate to the Company Request Tokens page through the link provided by CWS, enter the Client ID they obtained from CWS into the App ID field, and then click Submit to generate a Company Request Token. They will also be able to generate a replacement token if one is needed.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The new self-service tool enables an admin with the required permissions to generate a Company Request Token without relying on SAP Concur internal staff. The new tool also enables the admin to generate a replacement Company Request Token without assistance from SAP Concur support if their Company Request Token expires or is lost.

Authorised Support Contacts

SAP Concur has added an option to the SAP Concur support portal that enables Authorised Support Contacts (ASCs) to designate whether they should be contacted regarding a security or data protection topic.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This enhancement gives clients more control over who in their company is contacted regarding security or data protection topics, and provides greater control over which notifications an ASC receives.

Expense Pay - Classic

For clients in Singapore, the process for submitting a completed Interbank GIRO Application has changed. Prior to this change, you mailed the application to Bank of America in Singapore. Now, the new process is for you to submit the completed application directly to your bank in Singapore.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change simplifies the application process.

File Transfer

Files transferred to SAP Concur solutions must be encrypted with the SAP Concur public PGP key, concursolutionsrotate.asc.

concursolutionsrotate.asc

• Key file is available in client’s root folder
• RSA 4096-bit signing and encryption subkey
• Key expires every 2 years
• Client is responsible for replacing the key before it expires
  • Next expiry date: 4 September 2022
  • SAP Concur plans to replace the current rotating public PGP key in the client’s root folder 90 days before the expiration date

The SAP Concur legacy PGP key remains supported for existing clients but will be deprecated in the future.

SAP Concur strongly recommends that clients use the more secure rotating public PGP key for file transfers. To facilitate the use of the more secure rotating public PGP key for file transfers, SAP Concur added the key to existing client’s home folders on Friday 15 January 2021.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The rotating public PGP key provides greater security for file transfers.

File Transfer Updates

This Release Note is intended for the technical staff responsible for file transmissions with SAP Concur. For our customers and suppliers participating in data exchange, SAP Concur is maintaining our file transfer subsystem to provide greater security for those file transfers.

SAP Concur is in the process of migrating entities that currently use a legacy process for moving files to a more efficient and secure file routing process that relies on APIs.

Clients whose entities are currently configured to use the legacy process will be migrated to the more efficient process sometime between now and 31 July 2021. After they are migrated to the more efficient process, clients will see the following improvement:

• With the legacy process, clients had to wait for the file move schedule to run at a specified time. With the more efficient and secure API-based process, extracts and other outbound files from SAP Concur will be available within the existing overnight processing period shortly after the files are created.

This announcement pertains to the following file transfer DNS endpoints:

• st.concursolutions.com

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: These changes provide greater security and efficiency for file transfers.

Financial Integration Service

SAP has added a new column to the List Settings options on the Expense Processor page, labelled Financial Integration Enabled. This column indicates which expense claims are configured to be extracted using financial integration APIs rather than the accounting extract method. The financial integration extract method is configured at the Expense group level for Concur Expense Professional Edition, and globally for Concur Expense Standard Edition.

Clients can add this column to the Expense Processor view by selecting it in List Settings.

The column appears in the Expense Processor search results.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature allows the processor to quickly find expense claims configured for extract using financial integration APIs.

NextGen UI

The continued evolution of the Concur Expense solution user interface experience is the result of thoughtful design and research that provides a modern, intuitive and streamlined experience for creating and submitting expense claims.

Concur Expense customers have the ability to preview and then opt in to the NextGen UI before the mandatory move.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: The result is the next generation of the Concur Expense user interface designed to provide a modern, consistent and streamlined user experience. This technology not only provides an enhanced user interface, but also allows us to react more quickly to customer requests to meet changing needs as they happen.

Receipts

The ability to capture and upload fapiao into Concur Expense will soon be available. The Fapiao Receipt Integration feature provides the ability to capture and upload fapiao to an expense according to Chinese regulatory or government authorities.

A fapiao is a legal receipt required for business transactions, employee reimbursement and VAT deduction. A fapiao is issued by the State Taxation Administration of the People's Republic of China, but provided by the merchant.

The feature is available to new and existing clients based in China and deployed to the China datacentre. Other data centres are not included at this time.

This feature is targeted to release on 27 January 2021.

The Fapiao Receipt Capture for China feature includes:

• Offering a fapiao solution in compliance with State Taxation Administration of the People's Republic of China and as provided by the merchant

• Providing reimbursement and VAT reporting process efficiency, reducing time to perform these tasks

• Capturing of VAT fapiao and non-VAT fapiao documents via the SAP Concur mini app in the WeChat™ app

  • Supported fapiao and documents include:

    • General VAT fapiao in paper form

    • Special VAT fapiao in paper form

    • General VAT fapiao in electronic form as stored in WeChat wallet

    • Official China Rail tickets

    • Official airline tickets issued by China Aviation

    • Official taxi fapiao

• Uploading of fapiao and documents to Concur Expense:

  • For VAT fapiao, a validation is performed against State Taxation Administration of the People's Republic of China prior to the fapiao upload

  • For VAT fapiao, a duplication check is performed prior to the fapiao upload

  • Additional documents, such as itemised receipts, can also be uploaded with each fapiao submission

• Improving efficiency when capturing and merging multiple documents into one e-receipt transaction

• Displaying fapiao information in custom fields in Concur Expense with assistance from an SAP implementation coach

For more information, refer to the State Taxation Administration of the People's Republic of China (English Only) website.

Unsupported fapiao or documents for the initial feature release include:

• Electronic VAT fapiao in OFD format, including both general and special VAT

• Fixed amount fapiao

• Vehicle sales fapiao

• Freight Special fapiao

• Traffic fee fapiao

• Second hand vehicle fapiao

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This feature provides a paperless receipt option that adheres to requirements and regulations for China for paper into electronic tax receipt processing and compliance.

Release Notes

Starting with the January 2021 release, SAP Concur Technical Publications will no longer publish the preview release notes. This change is being made to streamline our client communication. With this change, only two sets of release notes will be published for each monthly release cycle: draft release notes and final release notes.

The 2021 Release Calendar (English Only) will be updated to reflect this change.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change simplifies the release notes communications.

For more information about the publishing dates for the draft and final release notes, refer to the 2021 Release Calendar (English Only).

Claims

With this release, the number of expense entries added to auto-created claims by Company Bill Statement or Expense Assistant is now limited to 500 entries per report.

If there are more than 500 expense entries (or sub-entries, including separately counted itemisations), another report (with the attributes) will be created to capture the additional entries. This logic repeats until all entries have been added to a claim.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change improves the use of auto-created expense claims, as extremely large claims take an inordinate amount of time to load and display. Overly large claims may be too large to open successfully, resulting in a need for support staff to assist in splitting the claim into multiple claims.

Travel Allowance Service

SAP Concur has changed the rate configuration for meals between 1 – 1439 minutes from being applicable for the first day to valid for single days only (applicable for all days, Minimum trip length in days = 1, Maximum trip length in days = 1).

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change supports both 24-hour and calendar-day configurations.

SAP Concur has added a new configuration setting, Rounding to Full Amount, for the deductions that use the Percentage field. This new setting has been added to, and is selected in, both Concur-managed bundles for Norway.

When creating a generic configurable bundle, selecting the check box means deduction amounts which are calculated from deduction percentages are rounded to the next full number. If the setting is cleared, deduction amounts that are calculated from deduction percentages retain the number of decimal places used for the currency.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change supports greater configuration flexibility.

SAP Concur has removed the half-day calculation for the last day of extended trips and replaced it with a time criterion of 19:00. On the last day of an extended trip, if the traveller arrives after 19:00, then the system provides a rate of 70% (of a full-day meal rate). If the traveller arrives before 19:00, then the system does not provide an allowance.

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change reflects the expected system behavior.

API

API information will no longer be duplicated in these product-specific release notes.

For further information on this new API, refer to the SAP Concur Developer Center (https://developer.concur.com).

Attendees

These changes are also part of the NextGen UI experience.

Users searching for employees to add as attendees to an expense will soon have additional filter options that can be used to narrow search results, helping make the identification of employees accurate and efficient.

Currently, searching for employee attendees can prove difficult as there may be no fields available to search by other than first name and last name.

With this update, the default advanced search view for employee attendees will automatically include the addition of email addresses and country filters.

This feature update includes the following benefits:

• Accurate identification of employees, particularly for those with the same first and last name

• Improved efficiency for employee searches by providing filters that help narrow relevant search results

• Simplified employee attendee management, eliminating the need to use an attendee import to update attendee data for the SYSEMP attendee type

• Optional inclusion of inactive employees in attendee searches

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This update helps make searching for employee attendees more efficient and also simplifies the management of employee attendees by removing the need to use an attendee import to update the attendee data of the SYSEMP attendee type.

Cards

Three cards settings will be removed from the Company Cards > Settings page.

The following settings will be deprecated:

• Allow employees to view additional information (Level 3 data) for company card transactions

• Enable card changes on my Concur home page

• Enable card charges on my Concur home page and View Charges in Expense

Business Purpose / Client Benefit: This change simplifies card configuration by removing settings that are no longer used or relevant.